are enrolled in it and about 350 are on a waiting list to get into the secondary school equivalency course but the future of these high-demand courses are in jeopardy for lack of funding.
The Ministry of Education has cut back its support for the College of the Marshall Islands-run General Equivalency Diploma program compared to earlier years, and college officials say the number of students and teachers in the program must be drastically reduced or eliminated altogether before the start of next school year in August.
Since school year 2005-06, the college has increased the numbers from 175 to this year’s 245, while spending about $225,000 annually. GED enrolment has been increased in response to the heavy demand from the community, college officials say. The program provides a second chance at a secondary school diploma for students who had dropped out school.
The Ministry of Education provided $166,000 in 2005 and $133,000 in 2006, according to college statistics. But Education cut the funding support to $100,000 each of the past two years.
Despite only $100,000 a year from the ministry, the college is spending over $200,000 annually to educate GED students a cost the college cannot continue to absorb, said college President Wilson Hess on Friday.
He said that GED is offered at the college at the request of the government’s National Training Council and the Ministry of Education, but is not a regular college program. The college is now owed $257,125, he said.
A cabinet official said earlier in the week that the government is working to come up with this funding for the college to ensure the GED program continues and possibly expands.
Ministry of Education Assistant Secretary Richard Bruce expressed surprise that the college claims the ministry owes it money for running the GED program. He said the college has been receiving the same level of funding for the past three years for GED although college figures show that the 2006 funding was actually $133,000, not the currently provided $100,000.
Bruce said in the current fiscal year, in addition to $100,000 for GED, the ministry is providing $1 million of U.S.-provided funding under the Compact of Free Association and $2 million from its local revenue allocation to the college. He said if the college needed additional GED funding, it would have to get it from another source.
Bruce said the ministry has many priorities and demands for its funding, including public school textbooks and supplies, feeding programs and other services. He also pointed out that the ministry has not been receiving the expected level of funding from the U.S.-provided Supplemental Education Grant, a portion of which is used to support GED work at the college.
“The SEG has been cut to $5.8 or $5.9 million, not the full $6.1 million with inflation adjustment,” he said.
“Obviously there is a need for CMI and MOE to work together to work out how best to use the limited resources,” Bruce said.
Hess said unless there is additional funding provided shortly, GED will be phased out or greatly reduced for the coming school year.
